Harmonizing
To the delight of my Facebook friends, every time I score a goal in the office 5-a-side soccer league I post a video of the event to my timeline. They and I are deeply grateful to YouTube and the entire software and hardware infrastructure that makes this all possible, not to mention the referee who clicks his remote at the pivotal moment. Now my football feats can be recorded for posterity and analysis by those who will be studying my life in the future.
If you are worried about these videos cluttering up my Facebook page, I can reassure you that I keep them to a minimum, say about two a season. No, I don’t cull the boring ones – I post them all.
I love soccer. I wouldn’t be playing otherwise, no matter how career-advancing my line manager hints it is. But I’m more of a quantity over quality type of player. I run around frantically after the ball like a madman, to little effect, until I am completely spent (current records: 9.4 min). Thereafter I collapse into the waiting arms of my teammates until the spots clear from my vision and my breathing can’t be heard across the road. Once recovered, I shout constructive suggestions to the players on-field until they let me back on.
My approach to singing entails a similar quantity over quality approach. I love it like I love soccer; it brings me joy. If you ever get invited to shower with me you should accept, because you are in for an aural extravaganza! But even if you don’t make that eminent list (current lifetime total: 1), you can get a similar experience just outside the bathroom door. It’s loud, people. Tuneful? Not so much. So long as I’m enjoying myself, who cares about getting the exact melody, right? We can always use the auto-tune machine in post-production if it comes to releasing a disc.
Nonetheless, there’s one time when I know I’m hitting exactly the right notes. When I’m singing in harmony.
When you harmonise you can sense your singing sort of… lock on to the other voices. To me it feels like all the different vibrations are literally coming from my own mouth. I love that feeling; it makes me wish those notes went on forever. I can see other choristers feel/hear it too – a shared glance, an extra level of concentration on an open-mouthed face. In those moments I know I’m doing it right. I have to be. I can feel it.
I remember hearing that song is the only undertaking where more than one person can act at the same time on the same level without interfering and ruining the other actors’ parts. We’ve all had conversations where even in agreement each person is talking over each other, trying to outdo the other with a similar story that supports the idea under discussion. Even playing soccer, when your teammates are running to assist you and give you passing options, only one player has the ball. But in singing we can join in with the others while they’re performing and it doesn’t interfere with them – it merges into one stronger, better song.
I remember learning about resonance in High School Science class, and being struck with nerd-wonder at the amplifying power of synchronised waveforms. It seemed like a glitch or a cheat-code, where you get more out than you put in. Certainly when we sing together in spiritual expression we create a greater, more transcendental articulation than we could on our own.
Not everybody is confident enough to sing out loud, I know, but I’d like to suggest (and maybe plead) that you try singing along softly, under your breath, waiting for that feeling that tells you when you’re in sync with the other singers. Feel that phantom buzz of other voices in your throat? Now sing louder. Join in a bit more. Your voices adds to the song. You’re making it better. It’s our song, sung together as one.
If you are worried about these videos cluttering up my Facebook page, I can reassure you that I keep them to a minimum, say about two a season. No, I don’t cull the boring ones – I post them all.
I love soccer. I wouldn’t be playing otherwise, no matter how career-advancing my line manager hints it is. But I’m more of a quantity over quality type of player. I run around frantically after the ball like a madman, to little effect, until I am completely spent (current records: 9.4 min). Thereafter I collapse into the waiting arms of my teammates until the spots clear from my vision and my breathing can’t be heard across the road. Once recovered, I shout constructive suggestions to the players on-field until they let me back on.
My approach to singing entails a similar quantity over quality approach. I love it like I love soccer; it brings me joy. If you ever get invited to shower with me you should accept, because you are in for an aural extravaganza! But even if you don’t make that eminent list (current lifetime total: 1), you can get a similar experience just outside the bathroom door. It’s loud, people. Tuneful? Not so much. So long as I’m enjoying myself, who cares about getting the exact melody, right? We can always use the auto-tune machine in post-production if it comes to releasing a disc.
Nonetheless, there’s one time when I know I’m hitting exactly the right notes. When I’m singing in harmony.
When you harmonise you can sense your singing sort of… lock on to the other voices. To me it feels like all the different vibrations are literally coming from my own mouth. I love that feeling; it makes me wish those notes went on forever. I can see other choristers feel/hear it too – a shared glance, an extra level of concentration on an open-mouthed face. In those moments I know I’m doing it right. I have to be. I can feel it.
I remember hearing that song is the only undertaking where more than one person can act at the same time on the same level without interfering and ruining the other actors’ parts. We’ve all had conversations where even in agreement each person is talking over each other, trying to outdo the other with a similar story that supports the idea under discussion. Even playing soccer, when your teammates are running to assist you and give you passing options, only one player has the ball. But in singing we can join in with the others while they’re performing and it doesn’t interfere with them – it merges into one stronger, better song.
I remember learning about resonance in High School Science class, and being struck with nerd-wonder at the amplifying power of synchronised waveforms. It seemed like a glitch or a cheat-code, where you get more out than you put in. Certainly when we sing together in spiritual expression we create a greater, more transcendental articulation than we could on our own.
Not everybody is confident enough to sing out loud, I know, but I’d like to suggest (and maybe plead) that you try singing along softly, under your breath, waiting for that feeling that tells you when you’re in sync with the other singers. Feel that phantom buzz of other voices in your throat? Now sing louder. Join in a bit more. Your voices adds to the song. You’re making it better. It’s our song, sung together as one.
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